It was not the way that Christian Redl’s latest deep-diving record attempt was meant to end: being hauled to the surface of Austria’s frozen Weissensee after losing consciousness in the icy waters.
Redl — dubbed the “Iceman” — experienced a blackout, something he sees as par for the course in his quest to break the record for the deepest dive under ice.
“For me, it’s not risky or dangerous. It just happened,” the 43-year-old said matter-of-factly after his unsuccessful record attempt on Friday last week.
Photo: AFP
The Austrian, who has had similar blackouts before, is part of a small group of freedivers in the world specializing in diving under ice.
His aim was to dive 71m deep into the Weissensee — itself covered in 30cm of ice — braving the 2°C water in just a wetsuit and fins.
However, exerting himself excessively on the way up resulted in a lack of oxygen to the brain, which caused a blackout.
He was dragged up by one of his six safety divers and pulled onto the ice where a waiting medical team sprang into action with an oxygen mask.
It is the latest chapter in a life dominated by a passion for diving that began at the age of six when Redl’s uncle gave him fins and a mask as a present.
They were put to use snorkeling on a Vienna Lake, before he started scuba diving at the age of 10.
Seven years later, he saw The Big Blue — French director Luc Besson’s film about the friendship and rivalry between two freedivers.
“This movie changed my life completely because my biggest dream was to become like Jean Reno in this movie, a world record holder,” Redl said.
However, work commitments meant that he only had the winter months to attempt records, which led to him to specialize in ice diving, earning him his “Iceman” moniker.
At 30, he quit his job as an investment banker to become a professional freediver, supporting himself with teaching and occasional acting work.
His ability to hold his breath under water for up to six minutes has given him a somewhat macabre niche of drowned corpse roles.
His first record came in 2003, a 90m horizontal distance dive under ice.
In preparation for his latest attempt — perhaps surprisingly — Redl only did one practice dive on the Weissensee itself, otherwise sticking to an indoor pool on the outskirts of Vienna.
“I do everything with my mental strength, so I really don’t care about the cold,” he said before the attempt on Friday.
New Zealand freediver and rival Ant Williams, the holder of the record Redl wanted to clinch, understands the challenges only too well.
“The water is not only freezing cold, it is pitch black and foreboding,” he said by e-mail.
“It is far more intimidating and uncomfortable than normal diving,” Williams said, adding that he regards his Austrian rival as “talented” and “more than capable of pushing the record deeper.”
As for his hardest dive to date, Redl said that came on Nepal’s Gokyo Lake at an altitude of 5,160m, requiring him to undertake six months of training to deal with the lack of oxygen.
“The first 10 doctors said ‘it is impossible, you will die,’” Redl said. “The 11th one said: ‘Yes, you will die, but it’s a cool project.’ So I concentrated on the second part of this sentence.”
BEYOND WASHINGTON: Although historically the US has been the partner of choice for military exercises, Jakarta has been trying to diversify its partners, an analyst said Indonesia’s first joint military drills with Russia this week signal that new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would seek a bigger role for Jakarta on the world stage as part of a significant foreign policy shift, analysts said. Indonesia has long maintained a neutral foreign policy and refuses to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or US-China rivalry, but Prabowo has called for stronger ties with Moscow despite Western pressure on Jakarta. “It is part of a broader agenda to elevate ties with whomever it may be, regardless of their geopolitical bloc, as long as there is a benefit for Indonesia,” said Pieter
US ELECTION: Polls show that the result is likely to be historically tight. However, a recent Iowa poll showed Harris winning the state that Trump won in 2016 and 2020 US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris courted voters angered by the Gaza war while former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a comment about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign entered its final hours. The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president frantically blitzed several swing states as they tried to win over the last holdouts with less than 36 hours left until polls open on election day today. Trump predicted a “landslide,” while Harris told a raucous rally in must-win Michigan that “we have momentum — it’s
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
TIGHT CAMPAIGN: Although Harris got a boost from an Iowa poll, neither candidate had a margin greater than three points in any of the US’ seven battleground states US Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in the final days before the election, as she and former US president and Republican presidential nominees make a frantic last push to win over voters in a historically close campaign. The first lines Harris spoke as she sat across from Maya Rudolph, their outfits identical, was drowned out by cheers from the audience. “It is nice to see you Kamala,” Harris told Rudolph with a broad grin she kept throughout the sketch. “And I’m just here to remind you, you got this.” In sync, the two said supporters
RSS